Waiting for the Queen Read online

  Waiting

  for the

  Queen

  Also by Joanna Higgins

  The Importance of High Places

  A Soldier’s Book

  Dead Center

  Waiting

  for the

  Queen

  A Novel of Early America

  Joanna Higgins

  milkweed

  editions

  Although two characters in this book are historical personages—the Vicomte de Noailles and the Marquis Antoine Omer Talon—and other historical figures are alluded to, this is a work of fiction. The characters and events herein are either fictional or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is unintended and coincidental except where substantiated by actual historical events.

  © 2013, Text by Joanna Higgins

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.

  (800) 520-6455

  www.milkweed.org

  Published 2013 by Milkweed Editions

  Cover design by Rebecca Lown

  Cover art by Elsa Mora

  131415161754321

  First Edition

  Manufactured in Canada in July 2013 by Friesens Corporation.

  Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Bush Foundation; the Patrick and Aimee Butler Foundation; the Dougherty Family Foundation; the Driscoll Foundation; the Jerome Foundation; the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit www.milkweed.org.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Higgins, Joanna, 1945–

  Waiting for the queen / Joanna Higgins. — 1st ed.

  p.cm.

  Summary: In 1793, fifteen-year-old Eugenie de la Roque, her family, and other nobles barely escape the French Revolution and arrive in Pennsylvania, where homesick young Hannah Kimbrell, a Shaker, is among those charged with preparing New France for the aristocrats’ arrival.

  ISBN 978-1-57131-877-0

  [1. Frontier and pioneer life—Pennsylvania—Fiction. 2. Social classes—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Shakers—Fiction. 5. Slavery—Fiction. 6. Pennsylvania—History—1775–1865—Fiction. 7. France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H5349548Wai 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012042167

  Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Waiting for the Queen was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation.

  To Kaili and Christopher

  Waiting

  for the

  Queen

  Contents

  1793: Novembre / November

  1.Eugenie

  2.Hannah

  3.Eugenie

  4.Hannah

  5.Eugenie

  6.Hannah

  7.Eugenie

  8.Hannah

  9.Eugenie,

  10. Hannah

  11. Eugenie.

  12. Hannah

  1793: Decembre / December

  13. Eugenie

  14. Hannah

  15. Eugenie

  16. Hannah

  1794: Janvier / January

  17. Eugenie.

  18. Hannah

  19. Eugenie

  1794: Février / February

  20. Hannah

  1794: Mars / March

  21. Eugenie

  22. Hannah

  23. Eugenie.

  24. Hannah

  25. Eugenie

  26. Hannah

  27. Eugenie

  28. Hannah

  1794: Avril / April

  29. Eugenie.

  30. Hannah

  31. Eugenie

  32. Hannah

  33. Eugenie

  34. Hannah

  35. Eugenie

  Epilogue: 1794: Septembre / September

  36. Hannah

  37. Eugenie

  Author’s Note

  Bibliography

  1793

  Novembre / November

  Eugenie

  A cold wind gusts through these American mountains, ruffling the churning river and further impeding the progress of our boats. On a map Papa showed us in Philadelphia, the river bears the Indian name Susquehanna as it meanders down through eastern Pennsylvania like gathered blue stitching on green fabric. The looping is most definitely accurate. But today the river is not blue; rather, nearly black. And the mountains are not green but in their sheer drapery of fog and mist, a dismal gray. Often a cask slides by, carried swiftly by the current. Or there might be great tree limbs with a few tufts of leaves that seem torn bits of flag. Our flag, I imagine in my fatigue. The flag of our beloved la France.

  Cold penetrates wool and velvet and settles upon my shoulders like stones. Ah, the marquis’s perfidy! Talon promised fine dwellings, but where are they? We have been traveling now for a week upon this wilderness river. He promised a French town, but where is it? I lean to my trembling pet and wrap my cloak more securely about her. “Courage, Sylvette. Soon we shall learn if the marquis is a man of honor or not.”

  Sylvette curls herself tightly against me, shivering in spasms. I try to comfort her, but a settlement appears along the bank that causes me to tremble as well—forest scraped clear for a few meters, and six rude log dwellings there, earthen colored. Smoke rises from chimneys, mingling with low cloud. Someone on a landing gestures toward our boats.

  Mon Dieu! Can this be our promised town?

  I close my eyes and hold onto Sylvette. When I open my eyes again, the settlement is behind us.

  Merci, my Lady.

  Fear eases its hold. I scratch behind Sylvette’s ears, feel the warmth of her. She hides under her paw and dozes. By now it must be midafternoon. Early this morning we embarked from the usual sort of camp we’ve been seeing along this river, merely a few board houses surrounded by a cluster of squat log huts more like caves. Last evening and again early this morning, several ill-clothed women and children emerged from these dark dwellings to stare at us. Maman ignores the uncouth gaping Americans. I do as well. But when a child ran up to Papa, wanting to touch his fur-trimmed cloak, Papa leaned down and lifted the boy high into the air and swung him down again. The child ran off, but not far. “Au revoir!” Papa called. The urchin smiled and threw himself at Papa again, and again Papa swung him upward. This time the child reached for the feathers on Papa’s high-crowned hat, but Papa set him down before he could tear them off. Then Papa took a coin from his waistcoat and gave it to him. Maman pretended to see nothing of this.

  How these people bring to mind our peasants, the way they watch us. The boy’s mother finally pulled him away as if we were evil.

  For such reasons and many others, the journey north from the port of Philadelphia has been distressing—the first hundred or so miles in a bumping coach to the river town o
f Harrisburg, and now these low boats and rainswollen river. And along the way, poor inns, poor food, and poor sleep, I tossing about on thin mattresses stuffed with crackling straw, tormented by dreams that always leave me exhausted. And then the dreams’ poisonous residue taints my days as well.

  But the dipping boats lull, and it is difficult to keep my eyes open. I give in to temptation and am, at once, back at our château in the Rhône-et-Loire. The fields an orange sea, flames rising upon it like waves. I run down stone steps into a cellar. Maman! I call. Papa! But no sound issues from my throat. The cellar becomes a charred field, and I see a farm cart surrounded by peasants on the road bordering the field. In the cart, my beloved maid and companion, Annette. Then smoke rises from the cart. Spikes of flame. Peasants move back. The air around the cart brightens with fire.

  I force my eyes open and the scene shrivels as if it, too, has burned.

  “Ah, Sylvette.” Her white fur warms my cheek, catches my tears.

  Why, Papa, I remember asking, did they do that to my Annette?

  Because of her royal blood.

  Do they hate us so, then?

  I think—yes.

  But what have we done to them, Papa?

  Perhaps it may not be what we have done, so much, but what we have failed to do.

  And that is, Papa?

  Treat them as we treat each other.

  But, Papa, they are not like us, so how can we treat them that way?

  Papa had no answer for me. He said only that the times are most confusing, and one is certain of little now.

  My heart is beating so as I hold Sylvette. “Maman,” I whisper, waking her. “How can there be fine dwellings in such a place? Perhaps they are taking us to some prison, just as they took the Queen to la Conciergerie!”

  Maman shakes her head a little and stares at the river. Finally she whispers, “No, Eugenie. This is America. We have been promised refuge, remember?”

  “But in such a wilderness? Why could we not have remained in Philadelphia? Philadelphia is America, too, is it not?”

  “Eugenie, you well know why. Yellow fever has swept through there these past months, and now it is a city struggling against lawlessness and near anarchy. Did we flee the chaos and anarchy and terrible dangers in France only to endanger ourselves here? Of course not. Also, there are many Americans who favor the French rebels and would happily see us imprisoned or, worse, sent back to France—a death sentence for us! I wish to hear no more talk of returning to Philadelphia.”

  “But the Vicomte de Noailles was there, Maman.”

  “Oui, to arrange our passage and, earlier, to negotiate on our behalf. But you can be certain he will not remain. Even President George Washington has left for his home in Virginia. Far better for all of us to be some distance away, in a protected area, as Talon promises.”

  “Promises,” I cannot refrain from saying.

  “And as for the yellow fever, I am thus reminded.” She takes two cloves of roasted garlic from her reticule, one for each of us.

  “But Maman, the taste lingers, and my breath becomes foul. Besides, has there not been a frost? It is said that when the frosts come, the danger of fever is no—”

  “Frost or not, eat it, Eugenie. The garlic cannot hurt, and it may help, still. Or would you rather douse your redingote and gown with vinegar as the slaves have been doing this week past?”

  “And so have the slaves’ master and his family. Well, what can it matter, those daughters being so long of face and foot. Gowns soused in vinegar will hardly make any difference for them.”

  Maman watches as I put the clove on my tongue. “You must swallow it now, Eugenie.”

  Reluctantly, I obey. “Those slaves, Maman. They endanger us as much as Philadelphia might. Are they not from the Caribbean, supposedly the source of the yellow fever? Why must they travel with us? It is beyond insulting. And remember how we heard they are from a rebellious area? What if their loyalty to Rouleau isn’t so assured? How safe shall we be then? By allowing Rouleau and his slaves, the marquis has doubly betrayed us.”

  “Eugenie. We know not whether the marquis has betrayed us at all. And why should he not offer sanctuary to Rouleau? We cannot begrudge the man. He, too, has suffered. Besides, there are but four slaves and those, by all accounts, loyal. You have seen the scars on that one. It is said he tried to put out the fire in Rouleau’s maison, a fire set by other slaves.”

  “Well, but Rouleau is not nobility, though he pretends to be. A pompous little tyrant, ingratiating to us, but quite mean to his supposedly loyal slaves. No wonder the others rebelled, and perhaps these shall too. Maman, the Rouleau family cannot stay with us. Either they must go elsewhere or we must.”

  “Eugenie, we have no choice in this matter.”

  “But the stink of them! Dousing themselves in vinegar!”

  “Lower your voice, please.”

  “Well, but we agree, do we not?”

  “Your speech is too direct. It is not seemly.”

  “Yet it is the truth.”

  “The truth must be better clothed.”

  “Well, how can one better say that they are a threat to our lives? How can we best clothe that truth, Maman?”

  “We could tell the marquis that we prefer not to have Caribbean slaves and commoners at the settlement. Better that they find more suitable accommodation elsewhere.”

  “But that hardly makes the point.”

  “It will express our displeasure.”

  “Surely we wish to express more than that.”

  Maman is silent.

  “Well, I shall not douse Sylvette with vinegar. Nor my gowns.”

  “Of course not, my dear. Nor shall—”

  Maman lurches against me as our longboat spins backward and into the prow of the boat behind us. Water sloshes in, wetting my suede shoes, redingote, and gown. Maman and I right ourselves, and there is the Rouleaux’s youngest slave in the boat alongside us. Her cotton gown is sopping to the waist, her eyes wide with fright. The pole is useless in her hands.

  “Idiots!” Rouleau shouts. I think he means us until he adds, “Look what you have done to the noble ladies and gentlemen! You shall be punished! Now, away from their boat!”

  The younger of the male slaves pushes hard against his pole, his scarred face trembling with exertion. But the current is holding us locked fast, and both boats are losing hard-won distance.

  “My fault, monsieur,” Papa calls. “Do not punish them, I beg of you. I lost the bottom again. They are blameless.”

  “Nevertheless, comte, they should have steered clear in time.”

  I bow my head to hide tears. Papa, poling with slaves and savage-looking rivermen in deerskin jackets and fringed trousers stained black with tobacco juice. Papa making apology to Rouleau.

  “Mademoiselle,” Florentine du Vallier calls out. “Perhaps the lances on your family crest are in fact poles, do you think?” Florentine is sixteen and believes he is a great wit. He is also thin and pimply and, when not attempting jests, surly.

  Still, the nobles in our boat laugh. Maman and I ignore them. But then elderly Duc d’Aversille, usually a kind and most generous man, addresses Papa, saying, “La Roque, had you remained in France, you might be wearing the revolutionists’ red cap and tricolor cockade by now.”

  How dare he. I turn to stare at him and hope that Papa will come up with some sharp rejoinder, but Papa merely laughs along with everyone and then says, “If you knew what pleasure I derive from getting this boat to move in one direction or another, Duc, you would be vying for this work, I assure you.”

  “Not I, Philippe. I am far too old for such sport.”

  Everyone laughs again, but the Comtesse de Sevigy first gives us a falsely sympathetic look. Hypocrite! Supposedly, she is Maman’s friend. Oh, I can just hear her. Madame Queen, we have the most delightful little story to tell you about our river journey here. It seems that Comte de La Roque has kept his true talent hidden until now . . .

  It wi
ll ruin us.

  But an even greater fear is that the events of these past months have overburdened Papa’s mind.

  The boats separate. Papa and the rivermen plant their poles in the river, lean forward, and pull. Our boat inches forward again. Rain drips from the rivermen’s broad leather hats. It sluices down off the boat’s canopy. Clouds descend even farther, obscuring the tops of these mountains bristling with leafless trees. But then Maman points to a patch of color on a mountainside—sienna, maroon, dark green, and lemon hues faded in the mist.

  “Chêne,” Maman says. Oak. “And see that lighter shade? Lovely!”

  “Like your brocade gown. Did you bring that one with you, Maman? You could wear it here, for the Queen. You know the one—you like to wear it on the Feast of All Saints Day.” I stop, remembering how we observed that holy day quietly, in Philadelphia, with no pomp or feasting whatsoever. Maman had worn one of her other, simpler, gowns.

  “Non,” she says. “I did not bring it.” After touching each eye with her handkerchief, she gazes ahead, into the mist.

  Soon the fog thins again to reveal a long tawny creature crouched on a tree that has toppled into the water.

  “Maman,” I whisper. “A mountain lion!”

  “Where?”

  “On that tree trunk. Drinking from the river.” But even as I say these words, the fog thickens again, hiding the creature.

  “You imagined it, Eugenie.”

  “Non! It was there, truly.” I lower my voice, not wanting Florentine to overhear. “Mountain lions will catch Sylvette and kill her.”

  “Eugenie.”

  “We must go elsewhere, Maman. We must.” “But we cannot.”

  “It will be impossible here. There is nothing but forest—and wild creatures. Perhaps Indians, too.”

  “Not Indians, Eugenie. They have moved farther west, we have been assured. As for our dwellings, we shall have proper maisons. The marquis has pledged this.”

  “Maisons with stoves?”

  “With hearths and stoves, surely.”

  “And servants?”